Experimentation and innovation have played a part in Connie Saddlemire’s art practice for decades. She believes strongly that art is about creativity and that art history is about change, not the status quo. Now living and working in Steamboat Springs, Colo., Connie first began “making art” while living in Taiwan as a child. Through subsequent visits and moves, locations from Japan to New Mexico, upstate New York, New York City, and Massachusetts have influenced her art. Her work has been exhibited in and collected throughout the U.S.

Caron G Rand draws and paints using graphite, acrylic, acrylic spray and oil on canvas, wood, paper, and resin. Her imagery uses self-portraiture, human vs. animal forms, flora & fauna, and often focuses on duality as opposite energies of light and dark. In her work, yin and yang merge, creating tension and contrast, emitting a visceral reaction. She finds her artistic aesthetic and rhythm fluctuating between the representative and abstraction. Rand's current work process, painting from opposite ends to the center and mirroring images, pays homage to the human eye that flips visuals for us 24/7 so everything we see is right-side up despite living in a topsy turvy world. Her work has been shown in the U.S., as well as in Japan and Armenia.

Josiah Gagosian explores his relationship to time, place, and identity through an intricate process of layering paper, collage, drawing, and painting. Born in Pocatello, Idaho, his father is a descendant of Ottoman-Armenian converts to Mormonism, and his mother the daughter of a Mexican Catholic and a lapsed Mormon of Scandinavian extraction. These distinct identities have shaped a sensibility keenly interested in the natural and constructed world. Gagosian has exhibited in New Orleans galleries and is a former artist-in-residence at the Joan Mitchell Center. He has curated exhibitions for the John Burton Harter and Joan Mitchell Foundations, and is an art educator at the University of New Orleans.

From large scale batik sculpture to images cut from wood and built, painted sculpture, Karin Skiba has created a wide and diverse body of work shown throughout California, Oregon, and in Chicago and Detroit. Locally she’s shown at Barnsdall Park Art Center, La Verne University, the Riverside Art Museum, LACMA, and Cal Poly Pomona; she also established and ran the Norco College Art Gallery. With her studio now in Joshua Tree, Calif., Karin has created art for over 44 years with persistence and passion.

Annie Clavel is a mixed-media abstract painter who grew up in Paris, France. Moving to Long Beach, California in 2006, she opened an art gallery and began her professional art career. Drawing on a background in science, her work explores perpetual motion, cosmic space, and the idea of infinity, evoking mystical landscapes, emotions, and untold stories. Her work is held in private collections in Europe, Japan, Canada, Tunisia and the United States. Annie is a board member of Women Painters West and serves as Chair of the Speakers Program.

Linda Sue Price is a Los Angeles-based neon artist who has developed her own unique style of freeform bending. She describes bending freeform as being like a dance: as the glass liquefies, the artist and the glass become dance partners. The glass is bent in the air allowing for unique three-dimensional moves. Price sees herself as an investigator of cultural phenomena; one who endeavors, with the aid of observations and readings, to arrive at a point of reference that connects the human experience with all the other parts of the environment. An avid gardener, Price incorporates what she learns from watching plants grow into her art. She’s exhibited throughout the U.S., including at the Los Angeles Museum of Neon Art.